Why punish myself?

Some times I wonder what in the heck I am doing. Today I was wondering just that as I was pedaling slowly up the Mt. Elden road dripping with sweat and feeling like my heart was going to blow up. I figured out why pretty quick when I got up to the ridgeline and junction with the Sunset Trail. Here are some photos of today with the Sunset Trail, the towers on top of Mt. Elden, and the San Fransisco Peaks. My ride went from the Sunset Trail down Schultz Creek Trail to the Little Gnarly Trail then down Pickle (which I rode for the first time and was scared a couple of times) to the top of Lower Oldham and back through Buffalo Park. Last weekend we were in Durango for the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic. The road race was cancelled due to snow up on the top of the passes but they let people transfer their registration to another event. I thought I would throw down in the time trial on Monday so I rode to the start and lined up on my road bike with all sorts of aero bikes with lots of carbon all over. I wound up in fifth which was middle of the pack in my category but that is good with me. We hung out with my Brother's family all weekend and went to some of the other Iron Horse events and a carnival at the fair grounds so we kept busy chasing after the girls. It was a good time and spring in Durango was definitely beautiful with all of the vegetation bright green.

The White Rim, snow and some wrong turns

Since my last post Anne and I have been to Moab for a cycling tour on the White Rim Trail which was just spectacular. We returned home from Moab to be visited by Old Man Winter for a little mid May snow storm. Most recently we had awesome weather for the Flagstaff Finale mountain bike race. You would think that a local race that I was familiar with would be the one where I would not go the wrong way but pack mentality and some poor course marking and lack of race personnel on the course led to many people adding extra miles onto their marathon race. I wound up in 13th (I think) which wasn't bad. Judging by how my body felt I should have come in DFL. I threw in some photos of the White Rim trip and the snow. Enjoy.

Now that ain't gonna be comfortable

The saddle on my Turner Flux has been hurting my ass end as of late and I was thinking that it was about time to change it out but the saddle that I found out by A-1 Mountain might not be an improvement. Anne and I went out to ride the Deer Hill trail the other day because it is part of the Flagstaff Finale race on May 17th and I have never been on it before. It was pretty mellow and will be fast during the race with the exception of some really sandy sections of trail. I was in Absolute Cycles today talking to Linden the sales manager and she was wondering what I thought of the course. I told her I thought it was a really short marathon course which apparently is the consensus and she might try and get the course lengthened. She also warrantied a Specialized tire for me without any questioning which was awesome and a legitimate unconditional guarantee policy on the new Spez tires. We are off to ride the White Rim soon and Yampa is going to the kennel for the first time so it should be interesting if she is angry when we get home. I found some old trash in the form of a pull tab Miller Lite can on the 556 road which was pretty sweet. That is about all for now.